Deafening
by TheGreatestWriter
Summary: A new girl in town, inexplicable nightmare scenarios around town, and a freakish family whose story ties into the heart of the city's evil. Yup, just another day in Royal Woods.


**Author's Note:**

**I've wanted to do a fic in the horror genre for quite some time. I've had some ideas in my head and decided to just go with it. I have no idea how often this'll be updated or finished considered I still have other works in progress but oh well. Please enjoy.**

**Deafening**

**Chapter One: Ripple Effect**

Black rainboots met a muddy puddle as young girl stepped off her school bus. The chilled wind swept through her midnight locks as she huddled in her yellow raincoat for warmth. Seeing as none would come idly standing by, she took off from the stop.

Facing in front of her was every kids' worst nightmare, the stone monolith to boredom, stress, and endless lecturing, otherwise known as school. For a particularly dreary day such as this, not a single smile could be found in the mobs of students lurching forth towards the doors of their daily doom. Besides the clouds opening up and letting loose a barrage of lightening, the most interesting thing most students assumed would happen that day was Principal Huggins tripping over his words in the morning announcement. Indeed, nothing of note was expected to happen on this particular Monday morning.

So, it became of shock to all, including the yellow-coated girl, when a new student came to the school.

"Good morning, everyone. I hope your weekends went well. Today, I'd like to welcome a new student to our class."

The yellow jacketed girl blinked. A new student was one thing, but she wasn't expecting a girl like this. She looked…rough, to put it simply. Her jeans, for one thing, had holes and rip in unorthodox places, the kind that aren't deliberate fashion statements but are more akin to accidental tears. She wore a purple zip up hoodie, though its color was faded at the top, and a patch was sewn above the right front pocket. Her shoes were raggedy, not just from the mud out of the outside rain, but with scratches and stains that rendered the black and white converses far out of any pristine condition.

It wasn't just the clothes though, that made the girl, it was the rest of her. Her left hand, loosely grasping the strap of her backpack, had band-aids around each finger, sometimes multiple on one, as if cuts were hidden beneath each. Her right hand's knuckles were bruised purple, maybe from a fistfight? Perhaps sensing eyes on it, the girl quickly stuffed that hand in her hoodie's pocket.

But it was her face that really said everything. A scowl was plastered on her visage, her mouth drawn into an irritated frown and her nose slightly flared. Dark freckles dotted under the corners of her eyes on her light brown skin. Another band-aid, bigger than ones on her digits, sat firmly on her right cheek. And her eyes…the irises were a steely gray, unwavering and uncompromising in their gaze.

"Her name is Ronalda Santiago, and she will be joining us to-"

"Ronnie Anne."

"-day, um. I'm sorry?"

The girl spoke again, nonplussed by the teacher's confusion. "I go by Ronnie Anne. No one calls me Ronalda."

"Oh, well, I apologize Ronnie Anne. Would you mind telling the class a little bit about yourself?"

"I moved from the city."

"Anything… else?"

"I moved out of the city."

Seeing as this was going nowhere, the teacher decided to move on. "Okay then. Now about your seating arrangement, let's see…"

Scanning the room briefly, the teacher's eyes fell on an empty spot next to the window.

"Why don't you sit over there?"

Finding no point in adding a snarky response, Ronnie Anne shrugged and slipped on over to her new seat. As she sat down and the teacher started the lesson for the day, a tap on the shoulder signaled Ronnie to look over at the girl with the yellow jacket.

"Hey, I guess since we're gonna seated together for a while I should introduce myself. The name's Stella."

"Hmph."

"Uh, is there a problem?"

"Sorry, don't really do friends. Especially girly ones."

"Can you believe her? Me? Girly?!"

"I mean, you are a girl."

"That's not the point, Liam."

"Yeah, _Liam_."

"Like you know any better, Zack."

"Yeah? Well, why don't you tell us what the point is Mr. Know-it-all."

"Well, I uh-"

"Ugh, boys."

Conversations at lunch almost went this way with group of friends. The guys had all known each other since kindergarten, but Stella only met them last year. Making friends had been…troublesome, to say the least. Most people at their middle school had already known each other from various elementary schools filtered into it. It didn't help that some kids felt it fun to pick on her for her foreign heritage, despite the fact that hey, she was born in this country! Still, having finally found a group she could fit into made her happy.

Even if they all thought she was crushing on one of them the first time they met.

"See? You're obviously a girl if you said that!"

Liam was, by all definitions, a humble country bumpkin. A bowl cut sat upon his freckle dotted head with a color so orange you'd think it was covered in cheese puff dust. His clothes were worn and likely hammy downs: a t-shirt one size too big and dark brown shorts. He was simple-minded in some ways, but he had a heart bigger than any of the ones from the cows he milked at his family's farm.

"Glad we solved that problem. Now if only we could solve Rusty's girl problem."

Zack, on the other hand, wasn't anything like that. There wasn't a better example of a geek in the school then him. He was obsessed with sci-fi, to a nearly unhealthy degree. Stella was dumbfounded the first time she heard he watched the same alien movie every night as a ritual. Never in her life, had she met someone so unabashedly shameless in their love for something so out there. Nothing about him would ever fall into the area what your average kid would classify as "cool". Yet Zack stayed true to himself, and that was cool enough in Stella's opinion.

Now, Rusty? Cool isn't something even Stella would call him. From pimple pizza face to his goofy, almost clown like hairstyle and lanky build, Rusty was the perfect example of puberty gone wrong. He was less into weird pop culture stuff like Zack or Clyde was, but he still came off a the dorkiest among them all. You see Rusty had the unfortunate knack of 'trying' to be cool. He asked out a girl almost every week, sometimes multiple on the same day, in some of the most cringe inducing ways. One time, he literally professed his love in Shakespearian form outside the 3rd floor science building, only to fall out and land in a rose bush of all places.

Still, he occasionally found success an got himself a date. Two weeks ago, took Sadie from 4th period history out to dinner and a movie. Unfortunately, the film was one of those torture porn affairs and Rusty threw up all over Sadie's shirt.

They hadn't seen each other since.

"I told you, she'll text me back! I'm just…giving her space until she's ready."

"Riiiiight."

"At least I actually had the balls to ask her out. Remind me: how far have you gotten with Kim yet?"

"Hey! I'm just, you know, taking my time."

"Yeah, for the last three years."

"It's called strategic war planning. Captain Zongorg uses it all the time in Cosmic Battle Vol. XII."

"Yes, because Captain Zongorg is clearly dealing with a middle school crush."

"Isn't he old? That sounds illegal."

"I didn't know you were into those types of comics, Zack."

"W-what? You guys are just putting words in my mouth! Clyde, help me out here!"

It was with shock that Stella seemed to have nearly forgotten about the last member of their clique seated at the end of the table. Silent throughout all their commotion, the glasses clad, afro hair sporting boy picking at his food with his fork. He was looking particularly glum, and his mood offset the livelier people of the table like a storm cloud on a bright summer day.

Clyde always felt removed from the rest of the group. Stella always wondered how he even joined them initially if he always kept to himself this much. Part of her knew it had to do with his parents who were overly protective of him. No matter where they hung out, his dads treated him like a nuke being transported across the country, always within their sight or reach and never a second out it longer. Stella couldn't blame them on _some _of their caution with Clyde. The kid had a list of medical conditions from Royal Woods to Timbuktu. Still, couldn't they afford to give him some slack at least once in a while? It irritated Stella, given the fact that in many ways she still felt like a stranger to the boy.

"Hey, Earth to Clyde, you there?"

"Huh? What?"

"Gee, you alright there, man? You zoned out on us."

"Sorry guys, guess I didn't get as much sleep as I thought."

"Join the club. My little brother watched a horror movie this past weekend and has woken up screaming from nightmares every night."

"Y'all can have your beauty sleep all you want. Me? I know that waking up at 4:00 a.m. sharp is the best way to get the most out of your life."

"Remind me to never sleep over at your house again."

"You sure you okay, Clyde?"

"Yeah. Never better."

Okay, that was a lie. He had definitely had better days.

But could you blame him? This had to be among the worst days Clyde had in months. It started with the fact that he didn't get any sleep. The call from the doctor yesterday kept him wide awake through the night. All morning long his dads had tried to talk to him about it, even offering to let him stay home for the day. But Clyde argued otherwise, after all, what's better than the droning of teachers to take your mind off of things? Unfortunately, it turned out a pop quiz was on the agenda of horrible things Clyde had to deal with. Considering he had other things to do than study last night… well, let's just say he was confident in his failure.

Then there was the whole friends thing at that, which was a whole nother fiasco waiting to explode. Ever since Stella came along, he was starting to feel…replaced. Not quickly mind you, but rather a slow, isolation from everyone else. Sure, they were quick to ask if he was okay and everything but come time for them to hang out after school and they happened to conveniently forget to call him over. And okay, maybe he was at fault for blowing them off a couple times when his social anxiety was its peak but hey, that didn't mean he wanted me time all the time!

It really didn't help that he hadn't really bonded at all with Stella, nor that she very much was aware of that fact.

So stuck on these thoughts was Clyde that it didn't even register that hi 4th period was over. In fact, even when the teacher got him to leave, his brain was preoccupied to the point that he carelessly walked straight into someone.

"Oof. Oh, sorry about-"

And said person happened to be the last student in the school he wanted to mess with.

"G-g-girl Jordan!"

Yes, recovering from said collision was none other than Girl Jordan with all her fearsome might. She was adorned in her usual attire of a blue plaid skirt and a lemon colored blouse, aptly appropriate given her sour mood. Despite being a bit put off from the clash she exuded a raw sense of power that could put off nearly any kid in her grade.

"Good going, McBride. You sure those glasses are the right prescription?"

"Ugh, dang it."

On the floor, dozens of flyers were scattered around like autumn leaves. Tossing her light brown braid over her shoulder, Jordan bent down to pick up the papers, but not before Clyde jumped at the chance to assist.

"Oh, let me help!"

Jordan arched an eyebrow at the young boy's proposition. "Hmph. Do whatever you want."

It didn't take long for everything to be picked up between the two of them. Of course, by that time Clyde realized that they weren't just any old papers but rather…"

"Missing dog posters?"

"Yeah, my friend Mollie lost her dog and has us putting up these things all over."

"Dang, that sucks. Not the poster stuff, I mean! Just the missing dog… thing."

"Yeah well, between you and me, the poster shit sucks too. It's not like I wanted to waste my whole lunch walking around hallways for empty wall space."

"When you put it that way, I guess they both do suck."

A small smile tugged at the corner of Jordan' lips but any chance of Clyde catching it was zero as she quickly returned to a neutral expression.

"Oh, and again, sorry about me running into you."

"Eh, if I wasn't distracted myself, I could've avoided you."

Without warning, Jordan grabbed Clyde by the collar and leaned into his face.

"But touch me like that again, and your ass is mine on the dodgeball court. Got it?"

"N-noted."

Satisfied with his answer, Jordan let Clyde go and started walking. She paused suddenly and turned around, looking like she had more to say, but the sound of people down the hall interrupted whatever train of thought she had. Instead, she muttered a single word out of frustration.

"Loser."

And with that, Girl Jordan continued on her path.

"Man, what kind of bad luck do I have."

"Tell me about it. I've had to wait a good five minutes for you two idiots to move away from my locker."

"What the-"

Spinning around, Clyde came face to face with the new girl.

"Oh, wow, I uh, didn't notice."

"No shit, dork."

Clyde turned away, grumpily crossing his arms as a frown took over his face.

"Loser, dork, what is this: insult-Clyde-day?!"

"Well for that, I would've had to known who you were before hand but seeing as I know zero people in this dump, that's not the case."

"Oh yeah, you're the new student, right? Ronnie Anne?"

"For the last time, don't call me- oh, you got it right."

Clyde scratched his chin as he nervously talked back. "I think I did? One of my friends mentioned you earlier at lunch. Unless you prefer something else?"

"No, no! It's just that, well, I've had to correct every teacher I've gotten here on it, plus some students who ignorantly or deliberately use my full name. You though…well, you got it right." Ronnie Anne proudly admitted.

"Oh! Cool."

"I swear though kid, there are some reaaaaal assholes in your school."

"Trust me, you'll meet more by the end of the week."

"Heh, well that's encouraging." Ronnie Anne snorted.

"I mean, I'm not saying they'll necessarily target you. I've pretty much had a target painted on my back the whole time I've been here."

"What? Did you run into all of them too?"

"No, heh, nothing like that."

"Hey, not to take away from this uplifting conversation we're having, but can you point me in the direction of my Algebra class?"

"Sure." Clyde readjusted the strap of his backpack on his shoulder. "Who's your teacher."

"Mister… Bolhofner?"

"Huh, well what do you know? You actually have my exact same class."

"Wow. What a totally random coincidence."

"I might as well just walk with you there myself since it's next period anyways."

"Lead the way, Einstein."

Side by side, the pair took off down the hallway, stricken with a strange feeling of content. Unbeknownst to them, however, a pair of eyes silently trailed their every move.

It would be some time before the kids realized that this would be their last quiet day for quite some time.


End file.
